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So here are my first findings (spoiler tags used from here on for images):

First feature: here are two of the three starters (there is also a Kabuto):

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For some reason, I can travel to Route 21 without being required to go north to get the parcel for Oak. I consider this a bug. The trainers blocking the way should be there until the parcel is delivered thereby forcing the player to go to the north first along Route 1. Players may be forever wondering when they will get their Pokéballs, and that's a lot of early backtracking since you only get your first ones after the parcel is delivered!

Hmm. I wonder why I cannot walk on these tiles. (Four on first screen, and that single square on the second.)

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I wonder who that is...

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Caught up with me? You were standing there, you oaf!

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...wa-wait! Pallet Town isn't THAT way!

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So I decided to run back up to Viridian and check out the Pokémon League building. Along the way, I stopped to splash around in the puzzle.

Admittedly, the glitches you found were more legitimate than I expected. Momduck was a joke that's just supposed to be silly and potentially amuse some people. Calling Momduck a glitch is about as founded as saying the boxes in the room are a tile error. Alternatively, you may be against psyduck adoption policies. Why would you? They have as much right to own a human as you do to own a Psyduck.

The other points are mostly legitimate things that aren't intentional, though. Yes, you can go south of Pallet Town after beating the Rival there. However, you don't HAVE to get the Pokedex as a result. Not having a Pokedex does absolutely nothing to this hack gameplay-wise (I worked with the code so 2nd and 3rd gen evolutions still work just fine), so the Pokedex quest only amounts to free Pokeballs and wild Pokemon. Frankly, the player should know how far away Cinnabar Island is, and if they want Pokeballs, they should also know how fast it is to get the parcel and suddenly have five free Pokeballs. It's still the world of Fire Red, so there's some background knowledge I expect the player to have.

Movement permission errors, I'll give you. My best guess is that I changed some tiles but forgot to add layers to the movement permissions and ended up never doing it, so things aren't working right. Whoops!

You are literally the first person I've seen complaining about the Aide. (Well, aside from a previous issue where the Aide would walk over a rock, but that's not there anymore.) If it makes you feel any better, think of him as having a desert condo somewhere. To catch up with you, he would be leaving his condo to block your path, and when he leaves in the direction that is not Pallet Town, he's going back to his condo. Why should he live in the same town as where he works? There are three buildings in pallet town, so he's logically more likely to live in the desert when you think about it!

The puddle water was an unintended consequence of two completely unrelated actions, and that was my mistake. Puddles have the same random encounters as surf water, so the obvious issues came up, and I never remembered to go back to every area with puddles to fix that.

The desert random encounters are just fine, and I have no idea what you mean about the surf water. Wild Pokemon are supposed to show up in the sand (though only certain patches of sand, since there's a wild Pokemon variety and a basic variety that are mixed in to spice things up). Regardless, the only thing I had to change when switching the water into sand was the movement permissions. Given that you don't surf in the sand, I think it's fair to assume I did that part correctly!

So basically, you're completely right. The game is lacking polish, but the two errors here where I agree with you (the movement permissions and the oh god overleveled psyducks) are some of the only mistakes in the game, if I recall correctly. Really, this isn't the hack you put in a contest, but more of something to show to people so they have fun. (Usually they do.)

Just take everything in stride and it really is a good hack, but if you get hung up on problems that don't matter much in the grand scheme of things and you'll hate it.

(Sorry if it sounds like I'm taking critiques of my hack as a personal attack on myself. I just make big posts in response to complaints so I can get my opinion across on everything that's said.)

I still think having separate patches of identifiable dark sand (see Unova Route 4) is a better practice if you want sand wild encounters along the main path early on. That way a player can deke around them. After all, as you noted, it's a long way to Cinnabar Island and there's no way for us to identify which sand tiles are the ones that are going to pop out Pokémon at us. I noticed another type of sand tile along the way, and even having one type (that one) allow for encounters and the one on the main path not to works well. However, it seems to be random.

I'm surprised that you consider the mission for a package for Oak to be optional. I'd think it a mandatory element to get a Pokédex. Doesn't Oak give out items for levels of Pokédex completion?

I found what might be another possible problem. There does not appear to be any blocker to the south anywhere upon acquiring your starter (AFAIK). What blocker is in place that gets removed after triggering the battle with Gary on Route 22? This battle occurs with Cacnea and his starter, at Lv.4 and Lv.7 respectively, after choosing to deliver the package to Oak; however, if the player makes the delivery and ends up not traveling to Route 22 (no doubt doing all of this wondering when the old man will move from between two rocks) to check out the Pokémon League building, it could cause a situation later where the player encounters Gary somewhere, then heads back to Route 22 (say to search for Totodile after finding out it's available there, which I luckily found on my second encounter so I knew to look for it) and stumbles upon this earlier encounter via script. This could look messy if it's possible.

I have a save state in place, so after completing up to a Gary encounter on the main game, I'll keep that save state somewhere and I might do it again followed by going backwards.

I'll presume the Lv.1 Gyarados was meant for a laugh. :D

EDIT: As of this edit, I'm quitting the hack and not returning to it. I was going to create a strategy guide for the game, mayhaps, but that Triathlete at the south end of Route 21 was unnecessary. A Lv.6 Furret knowing Rest? It shouldn't be EVOLVING until Lv.15, and it shouldn't be learning REST until Lv.32 (though a case could be made for Lv.28). It wakes up and immediately Rests again, wasting 5 PP on your moves. Meanwhile, it throws out the occasional Toxic, then Rests right after it. Ridiculous, and unplayable. This is clearly meant to be unrealistic and I'm not continuing with it.

It's a thing and official games have done it. The last trainer in the route is supposed to be a mini boss who is harder than the rest, so that is the case. That trainer is harder than the rest, but isn't nearly as hard as you're making it out to be. It's still an RPG, so you could just grind. I'd rather not list specific examples, but I've seen popular hacks with a lot more grinding than this.

I'm flattered that you wanted to make a strategy guide, though! The hack really is flawed, and you're not the first person to ragequit, either. I'm leaving this hack as it is, though. I'm actually working on a new project at the moment (extremely early stages of development, so a topic might not go up for months!), so this hack is just forever "unpolished but finished". I promise that I'll try to make any future hacks of mine good from a critical perspective however, so you have that to look forward to!

It's a thing and official games have done it. The last trainer in the route is supposed to be a mini boss who is harder than the rest, so that is the case. That trainer is harder than the rest, but isn't nearly as hard as you're making it out to be. It's still an RPG, so you could just grind. I'd rather not list specific examples, but I've seen popular hacks with a lot more grinding than this.

I'm flattered that you wanted to make a strategy guide, though! The hack really is flawed, and you're not the first person to ragequit, either. I'm leaving this hack as it is, though. I'm actually working on a new project at the moment (extremely early stages of development, so a topic might not go up for months!), so this hack is just forever "unpolished but finished". I promise that I'll try to make any future hacks of mine good from a critical perspective however, so you have that to look forward to!

I think my main frustration is because I already save-stated at the battle; the good news is I have an old save state, but the thing I do not recall (I should check) is whether the older state has Totodile or not. If it does, I may re-evaluate what Furret is weak to (Fighting, which coincidentally is my starter, which was in my PC of all places) and give it a go knowing that Mankey will knock it out while it's resting.

What are all the Pokémon in there? I'm still working on Soul Silver and not doing hacks as much ATM, but when the 3DS is charging I am looking at hacks. Took a glance at Light Platinum in fact and am surprised there is a free Elekid already captured lying around (which gets your trainer ID to boot). Things like that which can be done with a hack are interesting.

I did figure out the difference in the desert tiles, as well. So at least I know what tiles to avoid. However, you have a couple of trainer comments that still seem to refer to surfing or something. Maybe I'll load the old state just to look these up.

The route west of Viridian has various water types that you would expect to see on land. Lotad, Psyduck, and Marill as main examples. There's a one percent chance of Totodile (no idea why I did that, since I wanted starters to be only available in the safari zone), but you're better off surfing in the safari zone.

Also, if I recall correctly, all trainers who mention surfing on the desert routes should have some reference to "it's a shame I can't actually do that on sand" after battle. They MIGHT still say things like that in the battle scene right after you beat them, since I don't think I ever changed that. Good to see you're still willing to give the game a shot. Most of the "hard" things in the game are things that look difficult but are actually relatively simple. Key examples are Rock Tunnel, Saffron Gym, and Viridian Gym, though I've had legitimate complaints about people getting lost in Saffron Gym.

The reason I said that is because I had already caught Totodile. :) I like them better in the wild because, from my experience going after Totodile, it's hard to get them in the darn Pokéball as it is; if Safari Balls are only a 1x catch rate, it will be almost impossible to catch any of the starters. I like that they're in the Safari Zone, I just wish the other starters put in an appearance in volcano and forest areas respectively.

Well, that was going to be an extension of Mt. Moon. You reach the top, take a warp panel, fly up, and suddenly... boom! Moon. That was planned to be in a later version, but then I decided I'm done with this hack.

I assure you, the moon will most certainly be a setting of my next hack. Because the moon is awesome.

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